Anna Pasternak: the untold story

Anna Pasternak , great niece of Boris Pasternak, quickly dispelled misgivings that the Wigtown Book Festival would be a poor relation of the Hay book festival.
 
For an hour she talked about the untold love story that inspired Doctor Zhivago based on the real love story between Pasternak and his mistress Olga .
 
Her book, Lara, is the result of 18 years of research and writing and it took her five years to gain the confidence of Irina, Olga’s daughter now living in Paris.
 
When Anna finally did meet Irina she asked if she felt bitterness about the years she and her mother, Olga, had spent in Russian gulags .
Irina replied:”What a stupid question!” She went on to say it was a privilege to suffer for such a great man as Boris Pasternak.
 
Anna explained the difficulty we have in the West in understanding the place Boris Pasternk held in Russian culture. He was the equivalent of a Western rock star. If he gave a poetry reading thousands would attend and if he stumbled or hesitated over a line the audience would immediately fill in the gap reciting his poetry to him.
 
At the end of her hour-long talk there were tears in the eyes of many in the audience. It was the most moving talk I have ever heard.
 
Not surprisingly negotiations are underway for it to be made into a television series by the same company that made Downtown Abbey.
 
Back to Wigtown- so what’s it like? Small, friendly, and very accessible but don’t expect easy internet access – or taxis. One shopkeeper told me with horror that he had just been asked by some visitors:”Where are the fleet of taxis”.
 

This is what Hay must have been like – thirty years ago.